NEW YORK — James Earl Jones will return to the New York stage next month as an eccentric
grandfather in a revival of the 1930s comedy
You Can’t Take It With You along with Australian actress Rose Byrne, who is making her
Broadway debut.

The play, about a loving but odd American family, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937. Previews will
begin on Aug. 26, and a 19-week run will begin on Sept. 28.

Jones, who last appeared on Broadway in a revival of Gore Vidal’s
The Best Man in 2012, will play Martin Vanderhof.

The 83-year-old actor leads a multiracial cast as the income-tax-averse patriarch of the family
in the role made famous by Lionel Barrymore in Frank Capra’s 1938 Oscar-winning film of the same
name.

“It is about forces attracting each other in the family,” Jones said. “It’s like they are in
orbit and the principle is that you can be yourself as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.”

Vanderhof gave up his job decades earlier and hasn’t paid any taxes for just as long. He wants
all of his extended clan to find happiness.

Trouble brews when his granddaughter Alice (Byrne), the sanest member of the family and a
secretary in a Wall Street firm, falls in love with Tony Kirby, the son of the boss. Actor Fran
Kranz takes on the role of Tony, played by James Stewart in the film.

“Inside the action of the play, she finds the man of her dreams and there is a problem — a class
problem,” Jones said about the family dilemma.

The 1983 Broadway revival of the Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman play starred Jason Robards as
grandpa.

Byrne sees her character as a conduit for the audience and the voice of reason.

Although she loves her family, she is aware and somewhat embarrassed that they are
unconventional.

Because of the differences between them, Alice thinks a marriage to her fiance would never
work.